By Alex Boney
Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon
Goodnight light
And the red balloon
I’ve been reading Goodnight Moon (written by
Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd) to my
15-month-old son for the last year, much as other parents
have been doing for the last 50 years. It’s a quiet
book—the platonic definition of a bedtime story. It
methodically points to all the bits of clutter in a child’s
bedroom—things like a balloon, wall pictures, kittens and
mittens, a mouse and a toy house, a comb and a brush and a
bowl full of mush—and quietly puts all of these objects
away for the day. At the end, the lights are turned out and
the child is peacefully asleep in the dark, quiet room.
Goodnight Moon seems a stark contrast to the dark
mythology of Batman, but Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert use
the children’s book as the basis for their
recently-completed “Whatever Happened to the Caped
Crusader?” The result is a lyrically elegant, touching
story that portrays Batman’s psychological vulnerabilities
more clearly and more effectively than anything written in
at least two decades.
“Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”—told in
Batman #686 and Detective Comics #853—is
an homage/companion piece to a story first published more
than 20 years ago. The structure of the story is loosely
patterned on “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?,” a
two-part story published in Superman #423 and
Action Comics #583 (1986). Written by Alan Moore,
“Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” tells the last
story of Superman. In 1986, after the conclusion of the
12-issue maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC
Comics decided to streamline and re-launch many of its
flagship characters in an attempt to make those characters
more accessible to a general readership. Almost five
decades of Superman’s story continuity had to be scrapped
in order to make way for John Byrne’s high-profile
relaunch. To provide this transition, senior editor Julius
Schwartz asked Alan Moore to script a “what-if” last story
of Superman that resolved many of the character and story
issues that had been building for nearly 50 years.
The title and structure of Moore’s story is about where its
similarity to Gaiman’s begins and ends. For one thing,
Moore’s two issues can be read almost independently of one
another while Gaiman’s two-parter is written as a smooth,
continuous whole. And while Moore’s Superman story contains
elements of pathos and tragedy, Gaiman uses the somber
occasion of a funeral (Batman’s) to have numerous
characters tell the story of Batman’s death. Batman
recently “died” in Final Crisis #6. Although
“Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” doesn’t rely on
an understanding of Grant Morrison’s “Batman: R.I.P.”
storyline, Gaiman’s tale provides a timely elegy for one of
comics’ earliest and most-enduring superheroes. It also
provides a fitting anniversary tale for a character that
was created 70 years ago this year (Detective
Comics #27, May 1939).
The first issue of “Whatever Happened” makes it clear that
something’s not quite right about the circumstances of
Batman’s funeral. The heroes, villains, and supporting
characters at the funeral all seem to be pulled from
different eras in Batman’s comic book history, and they
don’t appear to know each other very well. Beginning with
the first page of Batman #686 (which references
legendary Batman artists Jim Aparo and Bill Finger), Gaiman
and Kubert deftly synthesize the artists, tones, and styles
of 70 years of Batman history. The rest of the issue
introduces iconic versions of Batman’s supporting cast and
allows Catwoman and Alfred (Batman’s butler) to tell two of
many “death of the Batman” stories to come.
By the time we reach Detective Comics #853, it
becomes clear that each of the stories told by the guests
at Batman’s funeral is a possible “imaginary story” that
concludes with Batman’s death. Many of the stories are
familiar and some are not, though it ultimately doesn’t
matter. As Batman says, “I’ve learned…that it doesn’t
matter what the story is, some things never change. Because
even when they aren’t talking about me, they are. Because
they’re talking about Batman. The Batman doesn’t
compromise. I keep this city safe…even if it’s safe by just
one person…and I do not ever give in or give up” (p. 12).
Through it all, narrative captions provide commentary and
response. Blue-tinted caption panels clearly provide
Batman’s thoughts while looking at his own funeral scene,
but the gray-tinted panels are unattributed until nine
pages into Detective #853. When Bruce Wayne’s
mother, Martha Wayne, emerges from the shadows to talk to
her son, the story shifts significantly.
The majority of Detective Comics #853 reads like a
modern visual/lyrical adaptation of Achilleus’ shield.
While Batman focuses on his mission—his war on crime
through which he hopes to avenge the murders of his
family—his mother calls his attention to the costs of war
and the reasons why men fight wars to begin with. One of
the most touching scenes occurs when, after Batman has
given a resolute mission statement about his role as the
caped crusader, his mother provides a reality check that
he’s needed to hear his entire life: “That’s right, Bruce.
You fight until you die. And then you die. When they can
find a body, they…they put you in a coffin. Until then you
keep fighting. Because you can’t stop it from happening
again. Because, no matter how many lives you save, you
can’t bring us back” (p. 15). The next page shifts into a
scene from Bruce’s childhood in which his mother reads to
him from The Goodnight Book (obviously a version
of Goodnight Moon). The rest of the story quietly
pulls apart the chaotic, disparate elements of Batman’s
vast history and quietly puts each of them to sleep.
Ultimately, “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” is
not at all like “Whatever Happened to the Man of
Tomorrow?”—or any other superhero story, for that matter.
It is far more similar to The Sandman #56—the last
issue of Gaiman’s “World’s End” storyline, in which
characters gather round, tell tales, and witness the
passing of a legendary figure. But “Whatever Happened to
the Caped Crusader?” is more than a simple, beautiful elegy
(though it certainly is that, too); it’s a philosophical
exploration of one of the most complex psychologies in
comic book history. Batman has always thought he’s fighting
to avenge the deaths of his parents, and he has given
little thought to reward or the afterlife. But his mother
provides a jarring clarity when she tells him that “You
don’t get Heaven, or Hell. Do you know the only reward you
get for being Batman? You get to be Batman. And—when you’re
a child—you get a handful of years of real happiness, with
your father, with me. It’s more than some people get” (19).
This doesn’t change Batman’s mission (in any of his
possible lives), but it does add a tragicomic element to
the Batman mythos that has always been there under the
surface but never so clear—as Alexander Pope said, “what
was oft thought/but ne’er so well expressed.”
When the story slipped into its denouement (an extended
echo of Goodnight Moon), I teared up. And I
couldn’t talk for a while after I’d finished. Perhaps this
is because I have a son to whom I read a variation of this
story every other day. But after talking with several other
people (parents and non-parents) who have read this story,
I have to imagine that Gaiman and Kubert have touched a
more universal nerve with their treatment of this character
and this story. All these things—these various pieces of
this recognizable character’s life—are tinged with an air
of tragedy. Putting them to bed provides a rest that Batman
can never take of his own accord during his life. Peace and
rest are the true antagonists to the Batman we’ve always
known, and it’s genuinely moving to see them finally win a
battle—even if this is only an imaginary story.
